Rio Grande Guardian HARLINGEN, TX — In a televised debate on Tuesday evening, gubernatorial candidates Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis offered sharply contrasting views on two top immigration issues in Texas. Davis said she supports allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for a driver’s permit to allow them to drive legally and with insurance on Texas…

By Anastasia Reynolds Cronkite News PHOENIX – If a state lawmaker gets his way, high school students would have to pass the same civics test required of immigrants before receiving their diplomas. “We believe there are certain facts of civic society that we should know,” Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Avondale, said at a news conference Wednesday….

By Zita Arocha Borderzine It’s time to shatter the myth that young Latino journalists won’t leave home for jobs in news media. This thought and others flashed in neon across my mind as I sipped white wine recently in a San Antonio ballroom to celebrate 30 years of tilling the soil to transform newsrooms into…

By Miranda Rivers Cronkite News WASHINGTON – With a deadline looming for a federal program to give free meals to all students in certain low-income schools, some Arizona districts are finding there really is no such thing as a free lunch. State officials by (last) Friday had approved just 29 of the 247 school districts…

By Aubree Abril Cronkite News WASHINGTON – Arizona has the highest rate of deferred deportation applications in the nation, with two-thirds of the estimated 34,000 eligible immigrants in the state signing up, a new report says. The Migration Policy Institute report cited a “mixed picture” for the two-year-old federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program,…

Culture

Life Issues

LatinaLista — A new study published in the March issue of JAMA Pediatrics on the December measles outbreak, traced to California’s Disneyland, confirms what was on everyone’s minds — not being vaccinated caused the illness to spread. Researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that a perfect storm was created…

LatinaLista — With more than 17,000 public libraries and bookmobiles nationwide, serving 96% of the U.S. population, there’s opportunity for most people to visit a library or have access to books and library services. However, a new Pew study found that Latinos, who have used libraries, are the least informed when it comes to knowing…

LatinaLista — It seems Latino students are getting the message that a high school diploma is the first step in having a successful future. The latest findings from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics reveals that Latino students, and other students of color, are improving their graduation rates and narrowing the…

Edmund Pettus Bridge Selma, Alabama March 7, 2015 It is a rare honor in this life to follow one of your heroes. And John Lewis is one of my heroes. Now, I have to imagine that when a younger John Lewis woke up that morning 50 years ago and made his way to Brown Chapel,…

By Obed Manuel LatinaLista GRAPEVINE, TX — The Grapevine City Council conference room filled with shouts of “No justice! No peace!” Tuesday night as more than 100 people showed up to protest the officer-involved killing of Ruben Garcia Villalpando. Martha Romero, Villalpando’s wife, sat quietly in the front row of the conference room with her…

By Julie Diaz-Asper LATISM I met Steve Goodman because our kids are in school together. I knew he was an expert on college education and part of the top colleges team. I didn’t know that he was a songwriter who uses songs to advocate on educational issues. Here is the story behind “Let Julio Study”…

Global Views

By Hillary Ojeda Peru This Week A cave containing some of southern Peru’s most beautiful, ancient paintings is unprotected and hardly known by the public. The Vilavilani cave, located in the Palca district of the region of Tacna in southern Peru houses cave paintings dating back to approximately 7,000 B.C. Archaeologist Jesus Gordillo told El…

LatinaLista — If the economy, Congress or national news headlines have you feeling blue, you might want to jet south of the border to Central or South America. Not so much for the sand and sun, though that would be sure to brighten any mood, but just to feel happier overall! It seems Paraguay, Colombia,…

LatinaLista — Mexico, along with many countries in Latin America, is a country whose people routinely suffer from daily acts of impugnity exercised by local police, politicians, corporations, drug cartels, the wealthy, etc. Past attempts to hold some of these perpetrators accountable — by bloggers, students, journalists or parents of missing children — has resulted…

LatinaLista — Last month, the streets of Lima swelled with a new protest movement hoping to do away with trash TV in the country and encourage more cultural programming. Begun on Facebook, the “March Against Trash Television” (Marcha Contra La Television Basura) paraded down the streets of Lima, Peru on the night of February 27….

LatinaLista — Mexico’s pyramid Teotihuacán is not just a popular tourist destination and iconic symbol of Mexico’s significance in the annals of ancient history but it’s also an archeological treasure living on borrowed time. Located 25 miles northeast of Mexico City, Teotihuacán is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican city renown for its long-standing structures and well-preserverd murals….

By Hillary Ojeda Peru This Week Rust-infected coffee plantations have left farmers in Puno poor and leaning towards growing more and more coca to feed and take care of their families, according to El Comercio. From 2013 to 2014, coffee production saw a 90% drop due to rust damaging crops. El Comercio went to the…